June 9, 2015

“Her body will tell us if it’s too much.”

Dr. Omari’s words are running through my mind and ringing in my ears. Her body is trying to tell us, but I don’t want to listen.

She hasn’t opened her eyes today. My grandma is not my grandma. She’s puffy from the 25 pounds of fluid forced into her body over the course of over two weeks. No matter how hard her doctors have tried, dialysis has failed her. There is no way for any of the fluid to leave her body.

The nurses have her legs bandaged in various placed, attached to them are bags full of highlighter yellow fluid. My grandma’s skin has literally split open to try and expel the fluid her body refuses to release. She is literally exploding, coming undone.

I know that we have to let her go.

I know she is suffering.

I know she doesn’t want this.

I know she isn’t going to get better.

My mom and I have talked about everything. She knows what my grandma wants. I have always known the ways my grandma wanted to and didn’t want to live. The two of us know it all and yet can’t speak out loud what it would really mean to make the decisions that are coming.

We don’t know it then, but tonight is the last of my grandma’s tomorrows.